Italian bathrooms

The way we produce and use our bathrooms are changing over time. One hour north of Rome is the pretty small town of Civita Castellana and this is the birthplace of making new and innovative toilets and washbasins. I was there and this is the story.

Ceramica Catalano invited me and a handful international guests for a two day trip to look at the latest innovation in producing toilet design.

The town of Civita Catellana have a long history of makeing ceramice. Even since ancient times. Here at the cathedral in the town where Mozart actually played the organ.

Today the material is scouted from all around the world. India, China, South America, etc. All to find the perfect combination and find a ceramic that is not leaking colours, bacteria or anything else. It should also be a durable material that stands the test of time. A lot is actually recycled material but you can basically only recycle the clay before glazing.

A whole research department is working on finding better and newer material. We got a glimpse of a new combination of clay and aluminum.

The clay is made into a rinning paste and then put in molds. What is unique with Catalano is that they don use gypsum or plaster molds. Instead it is a unique mold that not EXTRACT water but actually pushes out water.

Catalano prides itself of having a huge robotic production. That saves time and increase efficiency.

There is of course a big section where they check a lot by hand. But more and more is robotic.

Filing and checking by robots.

Glaze.

And burning.

One of the latest features is that you get your bathroom ceramics with matte on the outside and shiny on the inside.

When it comes to trends, Catalano talked about how the bathroom now is getting smaller and smaller. Maybe we want to use these squaremeters for something else in the future? But expect bathrooms to get smaller.